COLLEGE FOOTBALL GAMEDAY REVENUE

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Tony Altimore @TJAltimore FOOTBALL GAMEDAY REVENUE:

How much does an Athletic Dept. receive from tickets and stadium revenue?

In looking at the latest available data, it's surprising how little value many schools are capturing from football games, and I think this is one of the most important charts I've shared.

Below shows how much of the avg. total value at each football game from tickets + concessions + programs + souvenirs + parking at home CFB games goes to the athletic dept.

For some of them, it's not much, and needs to get higher. Many schools make a lot less per game than people would think, and suboptimal accounting allocation decisions by school CFOs, Comptrollers, and CSOs may need to change. More Athletic Depts. should benefit from the parking, concessions, facility $, bookstore merch, etc. that their football team is responsible for.

There are historical reasons of Athletic Dept. largesse and departmental noblesse oblige towards other auxiliary services depts. that should be reevaluated. Interestingly enough, I was part of a similar change in accounting strategy to recapture lost value at CIA many years ago, and it's hard for the peripheral depts., but these things need to change to better support the Athletic Dept. to capture and benefit from its value.

If any of the ADs or school leaders reading this want to chat about how to better capture the revenue you're giving away outside the Athletic Dept., shoot me a DM or email anytime, and let's chat!

Now, every school has its own peculiarities and eccentricity to their accounting, but these important benchmarks are what they are.

A big thanks to the great folks from @Sportico , @CFB_Data , and @KnightAthletics for the data they publish that let us see these benchmarks!

PLEASE NOTE: Source data and methodology issues are broken down in the sourcing footnote. For example, some schools may receive $0 from student tickets (as it arguably should be!), thus appropriately impacting averages, and away games have some small impact, but that's part of the reality of the financial picture.

FANS: Please do NOT whine in the comments (for real, please don't!) about why your favorite team's number is lower than rivals, but instead focus on how you can better support the Athletic Dept. by getting their numbers up.

This data is ONLY available for the public schools shown, but I'm happy to work with any private schools to help benchmark your internal data, if you have it and want to share!

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